An Analysis of Usability Issues on Fashion M-commerce Websites’ Product Page

Due to the increasing number of mobile phone users with access to the Internet over the last decade, it has become increasingly necessary to propose usability guidelines designed to be applied to projects made for mobile devices. In Brazil, m-commerce is becoming more and more popular and in the short-term it is likely to reach similar performance numbers as to the traditional ecommerce. However, there are still several websites that are not specifically designed for mobile devices and do not take into account their characteristics and singularities. A review of the existing literature on the subject was undertaken to elicit suggested guidelines for the development of digital interfaces. Based on these guidelines the websites of two retail companies were analyzed. The objective of the analysis was to assess what are the impacts on usability caused by uncritical adaptations of complete websites to mobile versions. This evaluation was done bearing in mind the categorization of usability principles developed by Brangier e Barcenilla (2003). Issues such as: confusing translations, lack of consistency, small touch targets, amongst others, were detected on the analyzed websites. This investigation showed it is possible to make small changes that would result in websites with improved usability.